DISEASE EMERGENCE AND RESISTANCE OF MICROBES TO ANTIMICROBIAL AGENTS ? AND THE CHALLENGES OF THE MILLENNIUM DEVELOPMENT GOALS

Specific factors such as ecological, environmental, or demographic have placed people at an f increased contact with previously unfamiliar microbes, their natural hosts or have promoted their dissemination. These factors are increasing in prevalence and this increase, together with the ongoing evolution of viral and microbial variants and selection for drug resistance suggest that infections will continue to emerge and probably increase. The discovery of antimicrobial drugs, the availability of biotechnological tools and significant breakthroughs in science and technology were to make us believe that infectious diseases were a scourge of the past. But tragically before the developed countries were able to fully benefit from the medical advances, we face a major risk that diseases considered vanquished in industrialized countries will once again become killers, bringing an ever present threat of sudden death and disability. Unfortunately too, there is no assurance that the development of antimicrobial drugs can keep pace with the speed at which microbial pathogens develop resistance. This is the risk that threatens the industrialized countries and blocks the progress of health in the developing world. This paper attempts to review the challenges of antimicrobial resistance, the cause, and the way out of this scourge of antimicrobial resistance as we look unto the millennium development goals.